COURT

Copyright (c) 2001 João Neto

This game is played on the following board:

Also, each player starts with 2 extra friendly stones (called peasants), 2 red and 2 blue stones in a reserve off board.

PEASANT - The Peasant moves to the forward empty cell, and captures diagonally forward (like the chess Pawn). NOBLE - The Noble (a stack with a peasant and a blue stone) moves and captures like the chess Knight. CLERIC - The Cleric (a stack with a peasant and a red stone) moves and captures like the chess Bishop. BANKER - The Banker (a stack with two peasants) moves and captures like the chess Rook. TURN - On each turn, each player must do one of the following actions: Move a piece according to its moving and capturing powers. Any captured red or blue stone becomes property of the attacker. Promote a friendly Peasant, i.e., place a power from the reserve over that Peasant. GOAL - The player that does not have any Peasant on the board loses.

The goal means that there is a tension between arming the player's army with powers, and keeping a sufficient safe number of Peasants on board. There's an optional extra rule: Demote a friendly piece, i.e., remove the power from a Noble, Cleric or Banker and place that power on the reserve. The piece becomes a Peasant. But I think it removes a bit of the tension featuring in Court.

An opening example White promoted b3 to a Banker. Black moved c6-c5. Then White moved b3-a3 and Black replied by promoting the Peasant at g6 to a Cleric.

There is a ZRF to play Court with Zillions.